


all the good love, when we're all alone

by philthestone



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, alternate universe The Mafia Meets Shakespearean Comedy of Errors, this is the most rom com-y thing i have ever written bye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 06:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14349477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: Gamora refuses to accept that she’s developed a crush, mostly because she’s never developed a crushbefore, and second-mostly because that would both prove Nebula right and make Nebula insufferable to deal with, both of which are undesirable options.And, at any rate, she doesn’t havetimefor a crush, pretty green eyes and stupid dopey grins notwithstanding, because she has aplanand that plan is toescape, because no one wants to waste their college years stuck working for the evil mob boss who insists on calling himself your father.





	all the good love, when we're all alone

**Author's Note:**

> all u need to know is: thanos is a mob boss who runs his organization out of a hole in the wall restaurant, gamora and nebula are his reluctantly adopted daughters who man the cash and bar, and peter is the poor dumbass who thinks that the place is a legitimate restaurant and keeps buying mediocre takeout from them so he can talk to his crush
> 
> overall all the characters are a little over like ... 15 years younger in this universe and their lives have been marginally less traumatic than in canon so if they seem too trusting or inexperienced compared to their real selves that's why. also, the title is from the inimitable "hooked on a feeling"
> 
> reviews make me happier than anything in the world!!! actually let's be real reviews are the equivalent getting to see peter and gamora actually kiss on screen .... magical

Gamora has never considered herself an  _ uncomplicated _ person. There’s always a little bit of complicated that accompanies being orphaned at a young age, or being trapped in the employ of a dangerous crime lord who insists on calling himself your father.

Everything in that  _ sentence _ is complicated, Gamora would argue. From the vague memories of her parents that are rapidly fading from the back of her mind, to the unspoken expectation that she learn Thanos’s trade to do his dirty work for him, it’s  _ complicated _ .

Somehow, all of this pales in comparison to the predicament that Gamora is in right at this moment, which involves a set of thick, uncoordinated limbs grappling with hers to get at the stolen orb that will be her ticket to freedom, held tightly in the fingers of her right hand. She jerks her knee up, twists her other arm around and punches the unanticipated threat in front of her square in middle of their masked nose with her free hand.

And a really, stupidly,  _ unfortunately  _ familiar voice says, “ _ Ow! _ ”

**

“He’s here again,” says Nebula, scowling.

“Who?”

“Don’t be annoying. You know who.”

Gamora purses her lips and raises an elegant eyebrow over the cash register at her younger sister, unimpressed. 

“ _ Who _ .”

“That idiot white boy who always gapes like a fish when you walk into the room.”

“He does not  _ gape like a fish _ ,” says Gamora, and then immediately frowns at her own slip. 

“Ugh, gross,” says Nebula, crossing her arms, fingers tapping against the curve of her prosthetic. “Don’t let Dad catch you making  _ friends _ .”

“I’m allowed to make friends,” Gamora bites out, closing the cash again and wondering why this has become a point of inquiry. It’s barely three in the afternoon and already she feels a Nebula-induced-headache building. “And don’t call him that.”

“Don’t let him hear you telling me to not call him that,” Nebula retorts, her scowl deepening, only half a note of mockery in her voice. Her arms are still tight; Gamora wonders if she’s actually worried or just pissed off that Gamora’s been balancing the cash in the evenings all week while she’s been stuck waitressing the three patrons this ridiculous place has. “And come on --  _ friends _ .”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Gamora.

“Hmph,” says her sister, and curls her lip at the register before she stalks off to the back again, long limbs a bit ungainly. Gamora rolls her eyes. Maybe it’s their new job descriptions, after all.

**

He comes in one day early in May, before Gamora is trusted with balancing the money and after she decides that she wants to get out. Usually, the eyes she has for customers are professional only, trained to catch on little details that might out them as competitors, enemies, people she can’t trust. This is half by Thanos’s expectations and half a useful survival skill, one that she takes great pride in. It is, Gamora maintains, only when Nebula insists on ignoring Gamora’s refined judgement that things get sticky, that they get in trouble or Nebula is stuck waitressing tables. 

Not that said judgement is flawless, but Gamora’s gotten good at catching people. And usually, the customers slip up just as she did with Nebula, say one wrong thing that ends in soured business or a back-alley assassination.

That’s not Gamora’s job, yet, not officially, but still -- it leaves a taste in her mouth she doesn’t like to dwell on.

This guy, though -- this guy. He walks in with this easy grin on his face and hair that looks like it’s never seen a comb, flirts with anything that breathes and even some things that are not breathing (his coffee order), and possesses a set of sticky fingers that he doesn’t think Gamora notices.

She very decisively does; she counts the silverware meticulously every evening without fail, thank you very much.

The problem, retrospectively, can be found right at the inception of things -- that Gamora’s fool enough to look the same look she does for every miserable patron Thanos’s establishment has, try to catch details that might give him away. The mere fact that she  _ looks _ is everyone’s downfall, which is frustrating, because looking is how she’s stayed out of trouble this long. 

But anyway: she looks. He could be from a street gang, because that’s a commonality these days and they keep stepping on toes, or one of the incompetent squad of drug runners just cropped up on the other side of the burrough, trying and failing to pose as competition. Or from the precinct two streets up, the one that has a deal with her  _ father _ through his oily assistant but that Gamora knows still houses a couple do-gooders, a couple rookies who actually care. The first time she rings up his bill his grin is crooked and predictable and before he can lean over the bar and leer she threatens to stab him with a kitchen knife in a cool voice, just to test the waters. 

That’s what she tells herself, when she looks back on it later as she puts away the remaining silverware -- that he’s probably just some Man, just like every other Man, and good riddance. 

That’s more likely than her other two theories because she can’t smell the drugs on him and a cop wouldn’t pocket  _ spoons _ , of all things -- and her eyes don’t catch any other little details, either. He’s either a jackass or harmless or insanely good at not making any mistakes, better than herself or Nebula or even Thanos himself, and Gamora shudders at that.

Two weeks after he starts showing up, after she’s made clear she’s skilled at wielding sharp kitchen implements, she comes to hand him his takeout and the smile he gives her is suddenly, disconcertingly disarming, crookedness replaced with a quality to it that she can’t identify right away, and suddenly she doubts.

Doubts that he’s that good. 

**

It’s annoying, because her brain has accordingly decided to no longer ignore him on principal when he tries to make friendly small talk as he places his order. She supposes it’s likely because she still makes the mistake of categorizing men into  _ good intentions _ and  _ bad intentions _ , as though there aren’t awful people strung all the way in between, but whether she likes it or not, the fact that her brain has noted the lack of shadiness means she lets herself listen to what he’s saying.

This is a mistake, Gamora will think, later on, when she looks back and tries to identify the beginning of the end. General life experience should have stopped her from even accidentally viewing him as a real person, because seeing people are  _ people _ is a recipe for disaster when your only friend is your adopted younger sister and your job involves nothing but three slimy old guys who kill people and that one duo that always comes in at lunch and orders grilled cheese.

It’s a mistake, but it’s not like she can do anything about it, because it’s like a switch has flipped in her eardrum and rather than tuning him out and offering her pointed silence without so much as a second thought, she now can’t escape hearing his incessant chatter if she tries. His voice is an easy, tenor thing, with not quite enough whine to it to be irritating and not quite enough drawl to it to be menacing. Warm, mostly -- flirtatious and suggestive in a way she comes to realize is just its natural state, and not something to cause concern -- and possessing the inimitable ability to claim a constancy in her life, rooted in its unwavering buzz in her ear.

He rambles. He rambles a  _ lot _ . 

She wonders if he talks because he likes hearing the sound of his own voice or if he was simply never taught how to communicate succinctly. 

Oddly, she finds herself utterly incapable of coming to a conclusion, and in her attempts to figure it out she seems to have worsened the “actually listening” problem such that his nonsense has somehow wormed its way into her head and is making her want to  _ respond _ , because above all things his blasted voice is  _ inviting _ and Gamora is a damn fool. 

She catches herself taking a breath to speak and lasts a blissful, relieved thirty seconds before her mouth detaches itself from her brain and betrays her, words tumbling out into the open. Which is a terrible development, objectively.

“-- got it on tape I think, somewhere under all the crap in my car --”

“I’ve never heard that song,” says Gamora’s mouth (the absolute traitor), and the idiot white boy and Gamora stare at each other for roughly five seconds in silence, blinking, because apparently she’s surprised  _ both _ of them.

And then,

“You’ve  _ never heard _ Gold Dust Woman!?”

Gamora, slightly offended at the tone of voice and desperately attempting to rally her remaining integrity, straightens her shoulders and turns right back to the cash. But the betrayal continues, because her mouth says,

“No -- should I have?”

“Well --” starts idiot white boy, and then stops, considers, makes a somewhat undignified noise and waves the hand not holding his takeout bag vaguely -- “ _ obviously _ , but that just means you get to listen to it for the first time  _ now _ , which is great! It’s one of the best songs ever made, like, objectively speaking, you could ask anyone with a brain, but  _ you  _ \-- seriously, you’d love that song.”

Gamora pauses, and looks up, genuinely paying attention now.

“I would?”

“Everyone should love that song,” he tells her with gravity, which is disarming in its own right; Gamora had never thought anyone could look so foolishly serious about a  _ song _ . But then he says, “but it’s all about this badass no-nonsense chick, and you’d probably dig that.” 

The voice in her head on the cusp of mocking him outright fades, and she watches him look down to rummage through his jacket pocket, before pulling out a crumpled ten dollar bill to place on the counter. Gamora swears it has a piece of old dried-out red lollipop stuck to it. 

“I would,” she says, somewhere between a question and a statement, hand hovering over the dilapidated bill.

“Sure,” says idiot white boy. “Lady in the song always makes me think of you.”

Gamora blinks again at the sad-looking cash, unsure of what to do. She wonders if she really is just extremely lonely ( _ pathetic _ , says a voice in her head that sounds like Nebula), or if the boy in front of her is actually engaging (bizarre, out of the ordinary,  _ unlikely _ , insists a voice that sounds somewhat more like her own), or if she is perhaps having an out of body experience. 

This last consideration, of all of them, is not entirely off the table, as Thanos had had her run the numbers for an exotic hallucinogen deal only last week.

What Gamora  _ should _ say, here, is  _ You don’t know me _ , cool and to the point and stopping the conversation in its tracks.

What Gamora  _ does _ say is rather different, and followed by a hesitant smile:

“I’ll … look into it.”

“Yes!” he says, his entire face lighting up as though she’s just offered him a particularly fantastic prize. “Dude, it’s the  _ best _ \-- just let me know if you want the full CD, ‘cause I  _ know _ it’s somewhere in the car --” 

He pauses, hefting the take-out bag slightly, and seems to remember himself. 

He says, “uh, I’m Peter, Peter Quill, by the way.”

Huh. So Nebula’s idiot white boy has a name.

“That’s a nice name,” says Gamora, a little dumbly. She’s still reeling from the possibility that she was contaminated by hallucinogens. It doesn’t occur to her that she should probably just say her own name back until he laughs, a funny sort of giggle caught between amused and incredulous. His curling bangs slip over his eyebrow as he tilts his head.

“It sure is.”

“Yes.” She pauses, holds his gaze in something that’s barely half a challenge but makes her feel slightly more in control.

Peter Quill only grins at her, disarming once more, and takes his change. 

It’s that quality, again, the one that she couldn’t figure out. But she thinks --  _ thinks _ \-- that she can place it. 

_ Kindness.  _

Not  _ sincerity _ or  _ honour _ or  _ dignity _ , which are all perhaps things that she should value. 

Nebula scoffs when Gamora tells her this, tone carefully neutral, so Gamora doesn’t bring it up again. 

Only -- she suddenly finds herself doubting the jackass thing, too.

**

Gamora sometimes wonders what they will do for Nebula’s eighteenth birthday. She didn’t used to wonder this, because there have always been certain things that don’t fall within their very particular sphere of daily norms, and  _ birthdays _ have always existed but  _ taking my baby sister to a paintball place and then clubbing _ has not. She didn’t used to wonder this, but Peter Quill told a story two days ago about paintballing and the idea is stuck in Gamora’s head, along with it the knowledge that Nebula would probably love shooting things with balls of brightly coloured paint that explode on impact.

It’s not the paintball itself that is making her skin itch, but more the fact that it is pathetically not a viable birthday party option. It is not, and has not ever been, on the metaphorical table of their life trajectory. 

Gamora is out of highschool and two years into being a legal adult and, like paintball, the idea of college has also never been on the table.

She  _ wants _ to go to college. It’s a blipping light on her radar of hypotheticals, one that will be attainable the moment she gets out. Hopefully soon. Preferably before Nebula turns eighteen, because Gamora has a feeling that’s when her job will stop being balancing checks and inch closer to following up on  _ agreements _ , which sound professional but usually end in lots of death.

Gamora hates agreements. Nothing good ever comes of them. For example, the unspoken agreement that siblings are at liberty to co-opt each others’ clothing is a terrible blight upon Gamora’s life, because here is the thing -- she never actually  _ agreed _ to it.  

And, more importantly, here is the other thing: that is Gamora’s shirt.

“It is  _ not _ your shirt,” says Nebula, eyes narrowing over the sink of the shared bathroom, holding her toothbrush up like it’s a bludgeon, or some other deadly weapon. There’s a bit of foam at the corner of her mouth, and here at the very end of the day her shimmery silver eyeshadow has smudged such that there’s an awkward fade of glitter over her eyebrow. “It was in  _ my _ laundry!”

“The hem is  _ obviously _ too short for your torso,” says Gamora, belligerent, holding up her own toothbrush (toothpaste-less, still dry). “You don’t even  _ like _ the colour black --”

“Everyone likes the colour black,” Nebula informs her with faked dignity that Gamora is sure is meant to be mocking  _ her _ , and turns back to face the mirror.

“Oh my God, just change into one of your own, it’s not ha --  _ Nebula _ , ew!” 

Because her sister has, of course, smeared toothpaste over the collar of the shirt Gamora is wearing now. And, by extension, Gamora.

“I’ll give it back tomorrow.”

“So you admit that it’s my shirt!”

“Ugh, whatever!”

Gamora wipes the toothpaste off of herself and smears its remnants accordingly back onto Nebula’s shoulder. Which she is now realizing includes Gamora’s shirt, too -- a grave tactical error -- and even  _ worst _ , Nebula refuses to react, but merely narrows her eyes at the bathroom mirror and continues to brush her teeth.

The jerk. 

It’s a losing battle, and one that Gamora is too tired to continue fighting so close to midnight. She decides to give up  _ for now _ only, so that she can walk purposefully back out into their shared room and flop down onto her back on her narrow bed. She looks up at the ceiling, at the empty white space where she used to wish she could cover in glow in the dark stars that might have chased the bad dreams away. She and Nebula would talk about it, when they were younger -- about decorating the ceiling. Back when they were both still in school and had similar responsibilities, when Gamora didn’t get the advantage purely by dint having more time to spare. They used to talk about leaving all the time, when arriving was still so fresh. 

They still talk, though. They haven’t stopped that. Gamora’s not sure what she would do if they ever did. 

She wishes, though, just a little bit, that they could go paintballing, frowning at the way a crack in the white paint is peeling. She  _ wouldn’t _ be thinking about paintballing yet again, only Peter Quill’s loud voice is caught on loop in her head, along with it the knowledge that he finally learned her name. 

And completely by accident, too, because a couple of their semi-regulars ratted her out, those asshole who always order grilled cheese. Or rather, one of them did, because the other doesn’t speak much, always towering over his short and scruffy counterpart in a way that comes off as far too serene to Gamora. No one has the right to look that serene when their employment is of questionable moral standing and they’ve started regularly dining at a restaurant that’s a front for the mob.

It’s ridiculous, too, because that guy new her name and Peter didn’t, and they started showing up right around the time  _ he _ did. Before them, their patrons were practically zero and Gamora stood around doing next to nothing all day while Nebula was at school.

_ Ugh _ . Gamora rolls over and digs her arm under her pillow, suddenly wishing that her life was not quite so complicated. A constant wish, to be sure, but sometimes, it feels like the extremes of complication are unnecessary. She wonders absently if Peter Quill’s life is also this complicated, and then frowns into her mattress, because why does  _ she _ care.

Out of curiosity, she decides. That’s perfectly legal, to be  _ curious _ about other human beings. It’s not like Gamora has a lot of experience with regular people anymore.

“You’re being quiet, thank God,” Nebula deadpans, finally emerging from the bathroom and dropping down unceremoniously onto her own single bed, making the springs creak. The covers, which are a dull grey and slightly threadbare, bunch up. Gamora’s own covers are black and perfectly maintained. Nebula narrows her eyes. “Why are you frowning?”

“I’m not frowning,” says Gamora immediately, willing her expression to clear. “Go to sleep.”

“You  _ are _ ,” Nebula says, “but fine --”

“What do you think about paintballing?” 

Nebula pauses, one hand hovering over the brace of her prosthetic, the hem of Gamora’s shirt riding up her stomach. She hasn’t cleaned off her eyeshadow.

She narrows her eyes, more deliberately this time.

“Why are you thinking about that  _ guy _ .”

Gamora’s hand flattens over her mattress. “ _ What? _ ”

“I overheard your conversation,” Nebula says, rolling her eyes, “which like, whatever, you’re both so dumb and loud the whole street probably hears. But I didn’t think you’d  _ keep _ thinking about it.”

“I’m n -- I’m  _ not _ ,” says Gamora, realizing that she has, unwillingly, bolted into a stiff and defensive sitting position. She was  _ not _ thinking about any  _ guys _ . “I’m asking how  _ you _ feel about paintball.”

“ _ Why _ ?”

“Because your birthday’s coming up, idiot.”

They stare at each other for a second across their cramped room, before Nebula says, a little bit lamely,

“Oh.”

“Yeah,  _ oh _ .”

“Well it’s -- not like we could  _ go _ .”

Gamora purses her lips and rolls over onto her back, making a face at the ceiling. “We could always run away before then.”

Ah, yes. The perennial concept of  _ running away _ .

“And use your tip money?”

Gamora rolls her eyes, both of them knowing that the unnecessary cynicism is unappreciated and that this stupid job has no normal people patrons and, as such, no tip money. Nebula makes a small noise, as though she has another snide comment half formed, but it apparently never finishes its forming, because the small noise is not followed by anything else. 

Gamora blinks, and frowns again up at the star-less ceiling, and wishes that life did not suck.

“Running away would be … nice,” says Nebula, finally. “But we need a better plan.”

“I know.”

Another prolonged silence, punctuated by muffled sounds of shuffling, of rumpled bedding, of the clasp of Nebula’s brace clicking open.

“Paintball would be cool though.” Gamora turns her head against the pillow, stray hairs falling into her face. Nebula looks like she’s trying very hard to hide a smile against her pillowcase. Her nose keeps twitching. “We could do it when we get out. Even if it’s after my birthday.”

Gamora hates that there is an odd, unexplainable lump in her throat. “Yeah.”

“I don’t even care that you got the idea from your stupid  _ friend  _ that you can’t stop thinking about.”

Which is just terribly uncalled for and false, Gamora thinks, because she has priorities that are unrelated to any loud patrons with pretty eyes, and she thought of paintball  _ for Nebula _ all by herself, and any speculation further than the plain facts which she has just stated is egregious. 

Gamora most definitely  _ can _ stop thinking about him, thanks very much. And, furthermore, not thinking about someone doesn’t necessarily  _ have _ to translate to not  _ talking  _ with them. Shifts at the restaurant are incredibly dull with they’re not stressful and nauseating, and company that doesn’t consider it their life’s goal to be annoying is appreciated.

“I’m honoured that you think I’m more annoying than idiot white boy,” Nebula says.

Gamora covers her head with her pillow.

**

“Uh, okay, okay, so worst public school teacher you ever had.”

“We went to private school,” says Gamora, pressing her lips together to stop the teasing smile and Peter grins, grins because he can probably see the smile anyway, and groans dramatically.

“So you’re one’f  _ those _ .”

“I have no idea what that means.”

He’s only a little bit tipsy and Gamora is manning the bar because there are  _ guests _ in the back room and they need drinks. Peter’s here killing time or something, she’s pretty sure he lives in a hole in one of the upper floors two buildings down that doesn’t have a functioning kitchen. He’s started to spend a lot of time on this exact stool in the evenings, because according to him the food is cheap and good and he’s broke as hell. He says this with an inflection to his voice that she catches, this time, one that makes her think it’s more than just the food and drink but Nebula had said  _ don’t let Dad catch you making friends _ and so she ignores it, ignores it determinedly, and laughs at him (not his jokes, she avows, but  _ him _ ) anyway. 

He’s put away his phone, the one that she’s assumed he uses for work but has never thought to really ask. They’re talking, the way  _ friends  _ might talk. She isn’t really familiar with the concept of  _ friends _ , so she doesn’t know, exactly.

(Friends like  _ this _ , and not in the way Nebula means.  _ Ridiculous _ .)

“You know, I actually believe you,” says Peter, grinning that stupid grin again. It’s stopped having that edge of misplaced charm to it, which somehow actually makes it more charming. Gamora does not voice this aloud, to herself or anyone. “You sound all -- earnest and stuff.” 

“Hmph,” says Gamora, tilting her chin to show just how unimpressed she is but smiling a little anyway. His jacket stands out against the peeling black decore of the place, the brown of the battered leather muted and welcoming and somehow making him look out of place, and his cheeks are very slightly flushed. It is her job to man the bar, which is what she tells herself to chase away the tight curl in her stomach every time she glances over at the other patrons dotted around -- it is her job and so she is not doing anything wrong by standing back here all night and talking to Peter Quill, because she’s  _ manning the bar _ and they should maintain the appearance of a normal establishment, should they not?

“Drink order for table two. And the meathead over by the wall keeps glaring at us, if you weren’t too  _ busy _ to notice.”

Nebula’s voice, a winning contender in  _ most annoying ever _ , cuts cleanly through Peter’s laughter and has Gamora’s shoulders stiffening. Gamora glares at her.

“He can glare all he wants. This place is open to the public.”

_ Appearances _ , after all. It would be foolish to expose all of them -- not tactically efficient to let slip Thanos’s operations in such a loose, careless way, if only Nebula would actually  _ listen _ to her for once. 

Nebula rolls her eyes, and then looks over at Peter, who smiles at her.

“Ugh,” she says, offering Gamora one last pointed eyebrow-raise -- she’s never been the most elegant at them, Gamora thinks, but she uses them quite liberally -- before slamming the drink order onto the bar and striding towards the next unsuspecting patron. Gamora watches the back of her sister’s buzzed head travel to the other side of the small room.

“You guys are related, right?” This is Peter, fingers playing with the outside of his glass. He doesn’t seem particularly bothered by Nebula’s outright disgust, and Gamora wonders if that’s born of magnanimity or just a profound lack of self preservation. “She seems like the kind of person who would side with the big bad if we were all in a superhero movie, but only ‘cause of her tragic backstory.”

Ah. Lack of self preservation, then.

Gamora rolls her own eyes, and starts on the drink order.

“She’s just very melodramatic. And my younger sister.”

“Got it,” says Peter cheerfully, tapping his fingers on the table, now. They’re constantly doing something, Gamora has noticed, quick and nimble despite their largeness. The silverware has stopped going missing, but occasionally she’s caught him slipping odd doo-dads out of his sleeves like that’s a normal thing to do.

_ Suspicious _ is the wrong word to use, because she is not.  _ Unbothered _ is also -- too  _ much _ , but it’s becoming more than more the case each day. She frowns at herself, and glances across the room to the table Nebula had mentioned, tuning Peter out as he starts saying something about his own lack of siblings. Sure enough, there’s a man there hunched over the table, covered in swirling tattoos, glaring right at her.

Perfect. Just perfect.

She ignores him, and turns back to Peter, who meets her gaze with a flicker of something that she could have identified as  _ knowing _ had it not vanished so fast. He continues talking, because she is certain at this point that he is physically incapable of ever stopping.

“-- couldn’t imagine havin’ to deal with someone else’s crap in mine all the time -- did you guys ever share a room? I knew a guy who had to share with his older brother even after he got married, just ‘cause life dealt him a shit hand. Like, dude! What’d you do if you had to have sex!”

“Kick the brother out?” Gamora offers, a little absent but grateful for the distraction. Distraction in a  _ good _ sense, she tells herself deliberately, and not in the way Nebula seems to see it. 

“See, that’s what  _ I _ thought, but think -- dead of winter, middle of the night. Unless you really hated your brother, you couldn’t just like, stick him in the snow, you know? But then, I guess if you  _ did _ hate your brother, that’d be some class A revenge --”

Gamora laughs, and lets herself be distracted, if only for once.

**

He goes missing for a few days in that he does not drop by periodically to spend money on their mediocre-at-best food,  _ goes missing _ in that he starts behaving like any other normal patron of any other normal establishment, and Gamora pauses in wiping down the bar to realize she misses his presence keenly, which is unacceptable. 

So she decides, experimentally, to stop thinking about him, because he is living his own life and not at all beholden to their little hole in the wall that is not even  _ meant _ to be a proper restaurant, and besides, she prides herself on her impeccable strength of will.

“ _ Oomph _ \--!”

She runs right into him mere hours after she has made this firm and unwavering resolution, a block outside the restaurant in the middle of a drug store run because Nebula ran out of tampons and Gamora is the best older sister in the world. It’s hard enough bump that she stumbles back a moment in her ridiculous work-mandatory heels (the ones that  _ Nebula _ doesn’t have to wear because she already fills Thanos’s “tall enough to be intimidating” quota), hard enough that Peter feels compelled to reach out and steady her, big hands curling around her arms over her jacket.

“Hey, assho --” he’d started, a knee-jerk reaction, until recognition fills his face and his eyes widen. “Gamora!”

She straightens immediately but doesn’t make to step out of his reach, stomach fluttering at the excitement with which he said her voice, like the realization that he’d run into  _ her _ was the best thing that had happened to him all day. 

Which is foolish but understandable because she has been  _ friends _ with Peter Quill for a little over a month now,  _ friends _ which is not entirely a foreign concept but different from the chaos of private school, different in that she’s never learned how to have this kind of friend, the kind of friend with whom she occasionally considers making out against the brick wall in the alley she just passed.

A bad,  _ bad _ consideration if there ever was one, if only because it proves Nebula right, and Nebula being right is always a terrible experience. 

Gamora stiffens, because -- well,  _ because _ .

“Hey, sorry, didn’t see you there,” Peter says, looking a little sheepish, an unfamiliar awkwardness leaking into his smile that makes the stiffness in her shoulders dissipate slightly as though of its own accord. His hands are so warm, even through her jacket. She knows this because he makes no move to let her go, which is interesting, Gamora thinks, willing her breathing to work like a normal person’s would. It’s  _ interesting _ . 

“That’s -- alright,” she says, and if her chin juts out more than it should it’s not her fault.  _ Vigilance _ , after all. On the defense. Completely in control.

_ Control _ , Nebula, thank you very much.

“I never see you outside of this place,” he laughs, green eyes sparkling, like that’s a fascinating subject. He’s not  _ wrong _ , but something about the observation makes Gamora’s stomach drop.  _ He _ likely spends all the time he’s not here elsewhere, doing other things, that she is not privy to. She realizes that this is the first time she has really considered this. Perhaps it’s because he’s always so fast and loose with embarrassing personal information that she feels she knows far too much about him already, only -- she doesn’t. She doesn’t actually know that much. 

“I’m -- I have a life,” she says, and if it’s got an edge of defensive to it Peter doesn’t notice.

“Where are you headin’?”

“Just -- down to the drug store.” The honesty comes freely, because why lie about getting tampons, and he’s still holding onto her, isn’t he. “But Nebula’s inside if you wanted to --”

“Oh -- uh, y’know, that can wait, right? It’s pretty early for dinner or whatever. You mind some company?”

Nebula’s voice, and her own voice in fact, says,  _ Yes, I do, _ very definitively. The one thing they agree on, apparently, but Gamora’s mouth betrays her for the hundredth time. 

“I wouldn’t mind.”

And then her stupid mouth smiles for her,  _ just _ to do the most, and Peter’s face lights up, posture easing and angling towards her, easy and familiar. 

She tries not to think about it too much, which proves to be more difficult than anticipated.

This difficulty is amplified by the fact that the walk there and back is short enough that she does not start overthinking but long enough that they start talking about mothers. 

Mothers.

For some reason, Gamora had not considered this to be a conversation in the realm of possibility. 

Peter Quill is not a bad person, from what her eyes have caught, and Gamora trusts her eyes. He’s harmless in the way any shameless flirt is, irritating as much anyone who never stops talking is, clever in that his cluelessness is very carefully an act, not entirely faked but milked as much as possible in all the right settings, enough to get him free drinks from unsuspecting patrons if he bats his eyelashes enough. Pretty enough to pull all the rest off, she thinks as an endnote, and then clears her throat and changes the topic in her head.

He’s easy to read, she assumes wrongly, is the  _ point _ \-- shallow in parts, too friendly and honest for his own good but carrying a subtle streak of dishonesty that she’s come to realize he does not, for whatever reason, direct at her.

But mothers --  _ mothers _ .

“A record shop.”

“Oh, yeah -- like, a really big one, with every song ever made -- and there’d be signed copies on the wall, and music always playing -- she’d thought the whole thing through. It was that or start her own band, but we’d do that in the living room anyway. Pops was on the drums and I got to be guitarist.”

“Your music is all hers then,” says Gamora, watching him swing the bag holding Nebula’s tampons from his finger, something she allowed him to hold onto only because it was amusing to imagine Nebula’s reaction should she see him. She tries, now, to picture him as a little kid, strumming his mother’s old guitar with very little finesse, in a living room filled with familial joy.

Something about that image fills her chest with warmth.

“Most of it, yeah,” says Peter, shrugging his shoulders, free hand in his jacket pocket. His voice is different, in a way Gamora can’t place, not nearly as easy-coming as it usually is.

“Does she still want to open the shop?”

His footsteps falter, and immediately, with a familiar trickle of dread, a piece of the warmth in Gamora’s chest fades. “Nah, uh, she --” He clears his throat, deliberate. “It’s okay, I can probably start it up for her one day. She gave me her old cassette player the night she -- before -- y’know, before I left the house.”

Oh.

Oh.

Gamora wants to say that she understands. She wants to  _ tell _ him, in a way that is unsafe,  _ too  _ honest. 

She is not honest, her traitorous mouth kept under armed lock, but she does say,

“I’m sorry.” 

It’s awkward and formless and makes her want to cringe, want to fold her face in on itself. Peter only shrugs again, exhaling loudly and looking across at a scattered kids’ game of basketball happening on the other side of the street. Gamora purses her lips. 

“You know, it’s -- it’s whatever.” He shakes himself a little, and then offers her a smile that is jarringly sudden. “Hey, you ever been to college? Highschool’s been over for two years and I really wanna go someday. Money’s a bitch, though.”

_ Two years _ \-- same as her, then.

It’s such a blatantly obvious change of subject, but she is not sure whether she feels disoriented or relieved that she does not have to try to offer comfort that she’s bad at giving when it’s layered with dishonesty. And anyway,  _ college  _ \-- of all topics he could have muscled into the conversation, college is something she finds suddenly, desperately wanting to commiserate with someone about. 

“I would  _ love _ to go to college,” she says, tells the ground in front of her with great genuineness. 

“I’m stuck in this job right now,” says Peter, the easiness filling up his voice again like it had never left, taking quick advantage of the distraction, “but man, the second I got enough to move -- send in an application --”

“Me too!” says Gamora, chest expanding and tightening at once, not bothering to ask where it is he works because  _ me too _ .  _ Me too _ , like those are the two most exhilarating words in the world. “What would be your top pick?”

“Aw, shit, I dunno --” He breaks off and laughs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Anywhere that ain’t back home, though. Missouri,” he adds at her inquiring look, and shrugs again. “Yeah, the accent’s kinda worn off.”

Gamora realizes she is smiling, more widely than she has smiled in a while. So he can’t be any older than herself, a person finally in the same boat she is, more or less. Her stomach flutters again, more acutely than before. Gamora watches a flicker of uncertainty flash under his expression, like the talk about  _ home _ made him unsure of himself.

_ Home _ . What an elusive word.

“You know …” A false start, and Gamora tries not to grimace. “I just -- back there -- I would have said something really nice, but I’m not -- good at this sort of thing.” 

Peter looks back at her, momentarily confused, before a lopsided grin slowly eases onto his face.

“It’s okay. Your specialty’s more in kitchen knives, right?”

“My parents didn’t stress diplomacy,” Gamora finds herself saying before she can stop, the corners of her mouth twitching. Her breathing’s funny again, for an entirely different reason, and against her coat sleeves she clenches her fingers. 

“Tell them from me that you’re really hardcore and they should be proud.”

Gamora inhales. 

_ Me too _ , she thinks.

“They died when I was a little girl.”

He pauses in the street, three blocks down from the restaurant, tampon bag swinging, and looks down at her. 

Soft in a way she has forgotten, Gamora thinks, sudden and disorienting. 

“We should get these to Nebula,” she says. “I told her I’d hurry.”

Peter snorts and grins in a fashion categorically immature, and the moment, the half-second, is dissolved. Gamora rolls her eyes, but she thinks of mothers, and college, and of softness, and of the brick wall of the apartment they stopped in front of and the tension coiling in her stomach at the thought that Peter Quill is far  _ more _ than she thought in a way that is anything but dangerous.

**

The next day she has to pour whiskey for a new customer -- tall, tight-jawed, dressed in an all-black suit and taking himself far too seriously -- and man the bar again. Nebula is annoyed again, though perhaps less annoy- _ ing _ than usual, but the grumpy tattoo guy is back, which Gamora supposes gives her reason to be.

Peter stumbles in sometime after one, which is uncharacteristically early for him, hair sticking up at angles like he’s been caught in a strong wind, which is odd because the weather is shockingly balmy and nice. He orders a coffee (black, with far too many sugars for its obvious purpose as something that makes him appear tough to be moot), nearly trips when he tries to sit on a bench at the bar, and looks distracted, but he has the wherewithal to smile at her, white teeth flashing a little lopsided before he scoops up his drink and rushes out again. 

She’s still wondering if he’s going to come back again later, trying very hard not to think about how she’d miss talking to him if he doesn’t, when Nebula sticks her head out of the back room and barks at her.

Well, not a literal bark. But it’s close enough.

“Dad wants you.”

“I told you to stop calling --”

“Ugh, whatever. Just  _ go _ .”

She’s still thinking about why Peter was so rushed, and chiding herself for thinking about why Peter was so rushed, when she pushes through the door to the back room only to be faced with Thanos and the tall man from earlier. Thanos is smiling, which is never a good sign, and the tall man is sitting up ramrod straight in a way that makes Gamora think he never relaxed in the first place. Or maybe that’s just his natural sitting position.

“Ah, my favorite daughter,” says Thanos, as though announcing her presence. Gamora smiles, tries not to let her shoulders stiffen, and ignores Nebula’s audible eye-roll from the other side of the door. “Perfect timing, Gamora. I have just struck a profitable deal.”

“Oh?” says Gamora, smiling, shifting forward on her heeled feet.

“Yes,” booms Thanos, because he is incapable of speaking in any other register. “We’ll send Gamora to get it for you,” he tells the tall man, then, as though Gamora is not standing right there. “She never fails me.”

“I trust she will not,” says the man, who also seems to be incapable of speaking at normal register. His boom is slightly more self-important than it is menacing, with a rasp to it that makes her skin crawl. Deliberately threatening, Gamora thinks, trying not to let her lip curl. 

“I would like to ask what it is I’m getting,” Gamora says, and does not know if she should be worried when Thanos smiles.

**

The thing about being orphaned, and consequently adopted by the man who indirectly caused that orphaning, is that while there is some common ground for commiseration, how you  _ cope  _ with your complicated life is really very contingent on personality. 

And Gamora and Nebula have always been very different people.

For example: Gamora’s expression of agency was to dye her hair, whereas Nebula’s act of rebellion was to shave her hair  _ off _ .

Things like that, Gamora thinks, are why it’s so difficult to have a straightforward conversation with her sister.

Diamonds. Stown away in a metallic little orb, buried in some junkyard on the other side of town.

And she’s supposed to steal it for  _ Ronan _ , a sadistic maniac who, as Gamora noted earlier, takes himself far too seriously and thinks that eugenics are morally acceptable.

Gamora is trapped in the employ of a dangerous crime lord, so her judgement of others’ moral compasses is somewhat hypocritical, but.

And this is a critical  _ but _ .

Diamonds.

She could escape.  _ They _ could escape.

Nebula does not agree.

“Are you  _ crazy _ ,” hisses her sister, at the drugstore again and once again in the feminine hygiene aisle but this time here on a lie, because they have plenty of tampons stocked at home. “What would you do  _ after? _ ”

“I’m capable of taking care of myself,” Gamora insists, too buoyed by the reality of this, the tangible  _ taste _ of escape to be felled by Nebula’s dramatics. “And there are  _ ways _ to make that work, Nebula. Just -- all we have to do is time this right. If you start packing things in bits and pieces tonight --”

“This was  _ not _ the plan!”

“It’s the best shot we’re ever gonna have!” Gamora says, grabbing an  _ Always _ pack and waving it in her sister’s face for emphasis. “If we grab the essentials and plan a rendezvous --”

“No.”

The word echoes, not in the drab tampon aisle but in Gamora’s head, making the ground under her feet seem suddenly immaterial. The plastic wrapper in her hand twists, but her fingers are too numb to feel it. 

“ _ No? _ ”

“NO. This is stupid and you could get hurt and I’m still underage.”

“We’ll figure it out!” She’s clenching the  _ Always _ packet so hard now that the plastic is at risk of tearing. “We can escape, the two of us together, like we’ve been talking about for years!”

“We  _ won’t _ . And if we leave, we can’t take him down.”

Which is just plain stupid, Gamora thinks. Utterly insane. And probably done specifically to spite her,  _ specifically _ to be difficult, because Nebula has always been this way, stubborn and badly behaved and doing her best to get under Gamora’s skin, and she stares, angry and blindsided and upset, standing lamely in the middle of the feminine hygiene aisle. Nebula’s dark eyes, usually full of mockery, are serious.

Gamora huffs out a breath, words garbling at the back of her throat and never coming out, and she can’t  _ believe _ this and so she leaves, turning her back on Nebula, leaving her standing there amongst the pads and pregnancy tests. 

Hands shoved into her pockets against the chilling air, Gamora escapes the awful drugstore and tries not to be angry, tries not to be upset, tries to choke down this bizarre combination of elation and betrayal that’s swirling in her chest. She has to stay focused, has to have a clear head for what she wants to do.

And anyway, Nebula is being  _ ridiculous _ , which means she’s not worth risking mental stability over, and so Gamora walks around the block three times to clear her head. 

It’s the third round and she still refuses to remove her glare from where it’s blistering holes in the sidewalk, and has not resolved anything in her head, which means she runs straight into an annoyingly solid body for a second time.

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” says Peter, whose coffee is now dribbling down the front of his jacket. Gamora blinks, registering the spilled coffee a second too late. She feels like she blanks out for a second, and when she wakes up again she’s apologizing, hands swiping at his chest frantically as though on autopilot.

“-- woah, wo -- hey, Gamora. Gamora.” Her rambling words falter to a stop on her tongue when Peter’s hands close over hers against his sticky jacket, warm and jarring. She blinks again, and looks up at him, at where his earlier good humour has been replaced by a soft concern. “Hey. Is everything okay?”

_ Okay _ . What a relative term. Gamora feels something in her chest tighten.

“Yes.”  _ Stronger, Gamora. Do better _ . “Yes,” more deliberate this time. “I’m fine. Just -- it’s been a busy day. Nebula was being annoying. You know.”

“Are you sure?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” she manages, swallowing, forcing the tightness in her throat away. None of this is her fault, which somehow makes the swirling confusion she’s stuck in worst, and now she can’t even go back to angrily stomping around the sidewalk because Peter’s holding her hand and sidewalk stomping would mean letting go.

No, wait.  _ Wrong reason, Gamora _ . 

Her shift starts in fifteen minutes, she thinks. That’s a good reason. She needs to get back, needs to get ready, needs to plan how she’s going to pull this off alone. The thought makes her tongue go all numb with dread, which is not a pleasant feeling. On impulse, she clenches her fingers against Peter’s chest, and his mouth twitches in response, which means he definitely felt that.

He catches her eye, and there’s a suspended moment where she knows he could open his mouth and say something, really press the point. He doesn’t. He says, “Sorry for walking right into you again,” oddly earnest, eyebrows lifting in a way that make Gamora’s chest abruptly loosen. It’s like an antidote to the previous panic and somehow exactly what she needs to make the spinning loop of confused elation in her head start dissolving. He’s still holding onto her, loose but secure, and like the last time, where the tension in her shoulders loosened of its own volition, Peter’s presence, his paradoxically steady disarray, has her relaxing. 

She wonders when he became a comfort and not a concern, and how she ever let that happen.

In one last act of betrayal, her eyes slip up from his front to his lips. 

Gamora swallows.

“If -- I can get you another coffee, if you want. My shift starts soon.”

“Oh --” She glances up, and he looks dazed -- blinks like she’s startled him, glances down at his chest. There’s a faint flush on his cheeks that makes Gamora realize with a sudden rush of heat against her neck that he probably saw her looking at his mouth. “Uh -- yeah, okay, that’d be nice.”

Peter is still standing very close. Somehow actually closer than before, because she’s noticing a spot on his chin that’s a little scabbed over, maybe nicked from shaving. She can see the patches on his jacket where the spilled coffee is still glistening.

“Right.”  _ Focus, Gamora _ . “We should head over, then.”

“Yeah.”

Only, they don’t exactly make any move to start walking, and continue standing there, in front of the apartment building a block away from the restaurant. His hands slide away from her shoulders, finally, but one swings down to hover by her uncovered fingers, and she realizes that the last time they stood face to face it was not this close and he’s  _ tall _ , taller than her, like tall enough that she actually has to look  _ up _ to meet his eyes, which are somehow both brighter and darker than they were a second ago. Tall in a way that she might have found irritating months ago, threatening in anyone else, but here -- 

She thinks, inhaling: the orb.  _ Diamonds _ . She has to get out. She  _ is _ getting out. She’s already made up her mind, knows it’s not her fault that Nebula is being stubborn. She’s seizing her chance, will somehow get her sister out soon, she’ll  _ make _ it work, and it’s safe, finally. 

It’s safe to appreciate how tall Peter Quill is, safe to not feel strange when she imagines what it would be like to push him against the brick wall to their left and kiss him thoroughly, hands against his neck, in his hair. She wonders if he ever bothers to comb it, and thinks fleetingly that his bangs would look nice if he grew them out. She has never kissed anyone thoroughly before, and isn’t wholly sure what it would entail, but it’s alright to  _ think _ about it, at any rate.

The streetlight above them is flickering, emitting sparks that dissolve into the darkening night air, and Peter says, as though remembering himself,

“Oh, hey -- did you ever listen to the song I told you about?”

Gamora finds herself incapable of not smiling, wobbly with the surges and crashes of her adrenaline. “No, I did not.”

“Well, lucky for you,” he says, very serious, bringing his face marginally closer to hers ( _ it’s already so close _ ), “I’ve got it right here, and we can listen to it  _ right  _ now --”

Her smile widens, the elation finally filling her chest for real, untainted, triumph making her giddy enough to override the wobble. 

The realization is lodging itself in her chest in increments, taking up more and more space.  _ She’s getting out.  _

Peter fumbles with the cassette player on his belt and Gamora’s eyes slip to his mouth again, compelled.

“Here --” She looks up, the half-smile still caught on her face, nerves buzzing for a hundred different reasons. The headphones he’s holding are old, tangled, but meticulously kept, the orange casing oddly endearing. She’s seen them before, thousands of times, hanging around his neck or at his belt, almost like they’re a part of him. He seems to have forgotten about them though, once again caught her on the tail end of staring, mouth parting just a little. Not  _ quite  _ gaping like a fish, but -- 

Peter’s eyes drop down to  _ her  _ mouth, this time, and Gamora feels her stomach bottom out. 

Her cheeks are hot, her heart speeding up on something that’s not quite anticipation. It’s blurring with the previous adrenaline and emotional upheaval, spurred on by the knowledge that he is definitely, definitely about to kiss her.

Her eyes flutter closed, and she thinks,  _ I’m getting out. I’m allowed to do this _ .

There’s a loud crash, followed by angry shouting, sharp enough that it jars her eyes open, sucks the air out of her lungs. Her hands are cold and she realizes Peter’s pulled his own hands away, is staring in confusion at something behind her.

Gamora turns.

Of course, it’s coming from the restaurant. Of  _ course _ . The next howl of anger is nasally and familiar, and it’s followed by an offended roar that Gamora can’t  _ quite _ place, deep enough that it must be coming from someone big. 

She turns back, feeling helpless, only to see Peter already looking at her.

“I should --”

“Go break up the fight,” he finishes for her, but he’s smiling, and that light is still in his eyes, and she can see them flick down one more time before she leaves -- almost like a promise.

Gamora squeezes his hand on impulse and rushes inside to break the fight, thinking that this will be the last fight she’s going to be breaking up, the last job she’s doing for this awful restaurant, the last day she has to spend isolated and miserable. Thinking that she’ll tell Peter the truth, once she breaks free, and then she can kiss him properly, like regular people do with people they’re more than friends with. 

Thinking that  _ finally _ , her life is becoming a little less complicated, just a little more normal.

**

Gamora is a damned fool.

For one thing, the fact that she even  _ contemplated _ the possibility of normality was naivety and ignorance at its finest. Absolute childishness. Nebula has absolutely nothing on  _ she _ , Gamora, the most prime  _ idiot _ in the entire world -- nay, the entire  _ galaxy _ . The imbecility of her own self, to ever assume that she’d be lucky enough to pull this theft off and live a free, uncomplicated life henceforth without a hitch, is mortifying. The obtuseness necessary to actually  _ believe _ for one second that she was correct to trust someone, the asininity needed to dupe herself into thinking that she was going to run  _ away _ and live  _ happily ever after _ \-- inconceivable. No, really. She’s sick to her stomach with embarrassment at the mere thought that she screwed up  _ quite _ this badly, that she was so  _ utterly _ stupid about  _ everything _ . Never before has another person made such a grave error, Gamora thinks, as the one she is realizing she has made, right now, at this moment in time.

The storage warehouse is still echoing with the seconds-ago scuffle and the awfully familiar “ _ ow!” _ , and Gamora, frozen in place, feels like the entire world has been suspended around her.

_ Oh,  _ God.

“Sonuva bit --  _ fu _ \--”

Gamora has only been well and truly speechless a precious few times in her lifetime, neither of which have happened recently. She doesn’t speak much, but that’s always been a choice, a measured control of her words -- not an involuntary, absolute loss of anything at all to say, caused by the kind of utter shock and betrayal that leaves you swaying on the spot like a moron who’s been konked over the head with a plastic baseball bat.

The stupidly familiar voice is choking its way through some prime garbled swear words, and in front of her disbelieving, foolhardy eyes, Peter Quill is clutching his nose, eyes watering, while Gamora holds the mask she just ripped off his head in the trembling, sweaty hand that is not clutching her precious diamond-filled orb.

She is, in fact, so shocked, that she somehow does not register the twist in his expression fast enough, does not have the wherewithal to stop him from reaching out faster than she would have ever expected and yanking off her own mask, hard enough that it jerks her head.

He gapes at her,  _ exactly  _ like a fish, one hand still pinching his nose.

“ _ Gamora _ ?”

The suspended universe crashes down very unceremoniously, and Gamora finds her voice again.

“ _ You _ .”

“Wha --”

“You  _ despicable _ \--”

“What the  _ hell _ \--”

“Dis- _ HONOURABLE _ \--”

“What is going  _ on _ \--”

“ _ SON OF A _ \--”

“ _ Why are YOU here _ ?!” squawks Peter Quill, three octaves higher than he usually speaks, standing there in a jacket that is not its usual brown but startlingly red even in the dark of the storage room, screaming Ravager clan at her and making her feel exponentially more foolish by the second. He sounds like someone has pinched his vocal chords shut with a pair of pliers, eyes bugging out in his head, but Gamora is too incensed to find it remotely comical, so utterly angry at him and Thanos and the universe and herself to register anything but the fact that she would be milliseconds away from punching his nose again if her arms weren’t trembling to hard to move them in a coordinated fashion.

She is.  _ So _ mad.

The maddest she has ever been in her  _ life _ .

“YOU!”

“What are you even --  _ o _ W,  _ FUCK _ !”

Because apparently the sound of his voice gave her the fortitude of spirit to wrangle her anger long enough to successfully swing her fist into his nose again, making his head snap back with the force of it.

“Why am  _ I _ here?” Now that she has rediscovered her own voice, it appears to not want to stay at any reasonable decibel at all. “ _ WHY AM I HERE? _ WHY ARE  _ YOU _ HERE?!”

“I ASKED FIRST!” Peter yells, the sound muffled through his gloved hands, which are once again clutching at his bruised face. The small part of Gamora’s brain that is not screaming at top volume notes the lack of blood and thinks viciously that it’s too bad she didn’t manage to break his nose. On impulse, she swings her fist again, but he dodges it this time, making a loud, offended noise and tripping backwards. Gamora howls in response.

“YOU DON’T GET TO ASK FIRST, YOU  _ TRAITOR _ \--”

“ _ HOW AM I THE TRAITOR HERE _ ?!”

“YOU _ LIED _ \--”

“ _ YOU _ lied!”

“About  _ EVERYTHING --” _

“HOW did  _ I _ \--”

“I can not  _ believe _ that I  _ fell _ for it!” Gamora whirls away from him, clenching her fists hard enough that she swears she feels metal bend between her fingers. “All this time and I thought you actually -- you!”

“What the  _ hell  _ are you talking about! How did  _ I _ lie! You’re the one who -- why are  _ you _ here? How’d you even find  _ out _ \--” His eyes widen, expression morphing into anger for the first time, something she might have identified as hurt flashing in his eyes if she wasn’t ranting into the dark of the bunker and refusing to look at his face on principle.

“You probably knew  _ exactly _ what you were doing, didn’t you? You immoral, cowardly, -- you -- two-bit --  _ traitorous  _ \--”

“Ha! Ah- _ hah _ , you --” He waves one finger vaguely into the air in front of him -- “I see it all now,  _ you _ were the one selling those drinks, you probably had it  _ aaaalll _ planned out, didn’t you, batting your dumb pretty eyelashes --”

“-- bat your  _ stupid _ eyelashes and make me -- wait,  _ what _ ?”

“ _ You _ tricked me!” Peter is pointing at her with one accusatory finger, cheeks flushed under the darkening bruises, eyes bright with his apparent discovery. “Someone -- tipped you off, I don’t freakin’ know, but for whatever reason you thought you’d screw me over --”

“What are  _ you _ talking about?” snaps Gamora, nonplussed, still too shaken to control her volume. Her dignity is already well out the metaphorical window, anyway. “ _ You’ve _ obviously been hired to figure out our secrets, and this entire time you’ve just been faking -- you’ve just --  _ pretended _ to --” She ignores the embarrassment flushing her cheeks -- “be  _ friends _ just so you could steal this orb before me!”

“ _ Whose _ secrets,” Peter squawks again, mouth more and more agape by the second. “This orb was my ticket to freedom, I was gonna take it and finally get out!”

“No,” says Gamora, more and more wrong footed with every word that comes out of his mouth. “That’s what  _ I _ was doing -- what?”

“What?” repeats Peter, dumbly.

“ _ You _ betrayed  _ my _ trust,” Gamora insists, holding up the hand holding his mask to point her own accusing finger. “You  _ lied _ to me.”

“ _ No _ ,” says Peter, sounding annoyed, but less loud and squeaky, the tone of their conversation marginally more normal.  _ Normality _ , thinks Gamora,  _ hah _ . “ _ You _ betrayed  _ my  _ trust.”

“I did  _ no _ such thing!” Gamora snaps. “You obviously were just coming to the restaurant because it was a front for the mob and you were hired to screw us up --”

“It was a  _ what _ ?” yelps Peter, both hands dropping down to hang useless by his sides. “ _ Us _ ?!”

Gamora stares at him. “Wh -- what did you  _ think _ it was?”

“A restaurant!”

“With  _ three _ patrons?”

“I -- I don’t  _ know _ , it coulda been -- well why do  _ you _ work there?”

“I don’t have any other  _ choice _ , dumbass! Why are  _ you _ dressed like a gang member!”

“ _ I _ got stuck with them as a little kid -- what the  _ hell _ , how is this  _ my _ fault!  _ How _ am I supposed to have been scoping out the  _ mob _ ?”

“Then why the hell did you keep  _ coming _ all the time!”

“I dunno, ‘cause I had a  _ really big crush on you!” _

He seems to realize what he just said a moment too late and flushes, different from the angry colour of before, the shock of it so great that he stumbles a few steps back as though shoved. There is a loud, prolonged beat of silence where Gamora is sure her mouth drops open foolishly, and Peter turns his eyes slowly and deliberately up to the ceiling, looking very pained. 

Gamora gapes at him. 

It is apparent that the identifier of fish expressions has now become the fish.

“Which was obviously dumb,” he’s continuing, his voice, hoarse from yelling and cracking oddly at the end filtering in through the pounding in her ears, “‘cause you were just faking it and don’t feel the same way --”

“That’s not true!” she hears herself saying, her own voice strained and weird now. The words eject themselves with a desperate, impulsive need to correct him that she can’t control. “ _ I _ was the one with the crush and  _ you _ were just faking it because you wanted to steal the orb first!”

“Uh,  _ no! You _ \--”

“ _ Don’t  _ lie to --”

They both stop mid-sentence, their combined, garbled words petering out into the dim light of the facility as it appears to truly dawn on both parties exactly what the other has just said. Gamora stares at him. Peter stares back.

She can hear the wail of a car alarm somewhere in the very far distance, faint, reminding them that they still exist in the real world, and that it’s the middle of the night, and that neither of them are up to anything particularly legal. Gamora shifts on her feet, and doesn’t know where to look, and maybe swings her arms a little awkwardly.

“You -- you like me?” asks Peter in a voice much quieter than before, and it’s so completely different from the yelling and spluttering of minutes ago in its awkward hopefulness that Gamora finds herself choking out a laugh.

It’s a little hysterical, and very breathy. She averts her eyes, finally, to examine the scratched wall behind him, and shuffles her feet slightly.

“That’s not what I said,” she says, even though that is, quite literally, exactly what she said.  _ Come on, Gamora _ .

“Okay,” says Peter, a little lamely, jerking his chin a little. “Right. Um, okay, I --”

The car alarm shuts off and Gamora realizes that the fact that Peter Quill was apparently too obtuse to be a threat any other way than by complete accident does not change the fact that she needs these diamonds.

She can’t go back now.

“I’m taking the orb,” she says, a little too loud for the current tone of the conversation and more forceful than it objectively should be, but she’s so wrong-footed that she needs to somehow feel in control again. “Just so -- you know. I got here first.”

“Wait, hang on --” Peter takes a step forward and Gamora’s eyes snap back to him, but something keeps her feet rooted in place, which is weird and annoying but not exactly unwanted. She stays put, at any rate, and watches him stop and catch himself, take a half-step back and careful raise his hands up very slowly in front of him.

“What,” she says, sharp, stomach fluttering with anxiety that she really doesn’t need right now.

“Um, I have an idea.”

She may or may not have given him a black eye, but his hair is flopping over his forehead again and Gamora is absurdly reminded of the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, and his hands on hers.

Which is a terrible thought, because he’s going to try to take the diamonds from her which ruins any last --

“What if we work together?”

Gamora blinks.

“What?”

“It’s -- it’s a lot of diamonds, right? And I mean -- you’re --”

“Trapped in the employ of a dangerous mob boss,” Gamora supplies on autopilot. Perhaps this is all a dream, says a small part of her brain. Peter takes a very tentative step forward, and doesn’t step back this time afterward.

“Right,” he says, sounding a little hysterical himself. Which is very relatable. “And I’m stuck working shitty jobs selling weed for a street gang --”

“That sounds terrible.”

“Not so bad but I really wanna go to college like a normal person.”

Gamora swallows. He is standing in front of her finally, and she’s known him for a while, and she really  _ shouldn’t _ trust him, not anymore, not after so much omission of the truth but  _ she _ omitted truth too and she knows -- she knows his face.

Which is a dumb -- it’s dumb to  _ say _ that, given how badly Gamora’s screwed up, here. Because he never showed any tells because his dumb ass didn’t think there was anything to be telling. 

But he looks so earnest, and Gamora says,

“Me too.”

“Right!” says Peter, “so -- we could. I mean, it’s a lotta diamonds --”

“Split it,” Gamora says, the concept finally clicking into place in her head. “The money, you mean.”

He nods, looking very serious. “Yeah -- yes, ye -- I mean, I’d understand if you -- or, I really wouldn’t, ‘cause --”

“Okay,” blurts Gamora. The orb is light in her hand, and against all reason, something about this feels  _ right _ .

Nebula would completely kick her ass if she was here, Gamora thinks, but Nebula is not here. 

And anyway -- Peter is smiling, a grin that’s bright and warm and  _ inviting _ , damn him.

He probably no longer trusts her at all, and she probably shouldn’t trust him, but she figures that they’re going to sell the stones and go their separate ways, anyway, and then she won’t have to worry about any of this, or the fact that his feelings were past tense.

_ Unimportant _ , says a small voice in the back of her head, but it doesn’t stop her from thinking it.

“Okay, cool,” Peter is saying. He looks a bit ridiculous with his purpling face, but he seems relieved, his shoulders relaxing in a way that makes Gamora want to lecture him on how stupid it is to relax, right now, around her. She isn’t who he thought she was. He clearly wasn’t who  _ she _ thought he was.

“Okay,” says Gamora. “Cool.”

They stand awkwardly for another couple beats before Gamora nods, almost as though to herself, and makes to turn towards the entrance.

“For the record,” says Peter, still quiet, still in that earnest voice, “I like you too.” 

Gamora freezes, turning back. He clears his throat, shoving his hands into his pockets, which somehow makes him look even more foolish for all of how long his limbs are, hunched together too close. 

“Anyway, we should prob’ly leave now, ‘cause --”

And Gamora leans up and presses her lips against his, because he is a lot closer than she thought he was and she is a damned fool. 

More of a peck than anything, almost like they just accidentally bumped faces. She drops back down onto her heels and inhales sharply, already half-turning away. 

“Just wanted to get it out of the way,” she hears herself say, barely paying attention to his widened eyes and parted lips, eyes trained on a stain on his collar instead and already regretting it. It’s a pretty smooth sentence, if she might say so herself, all cool and casual as though Gamora is actually any semblance of cool and casual. It was so fast that she hardly registered it, can’t really remember what his lips felt like, and she swears there’s someone pounding a mallet against her diaphragm because that was stupid, and impulsive, and Gamora is neither of those things but she’s been thinking about this for the past month and a half. She probably just made things weird. She definitely just made things weird, because Peter hasn’t said anything and it’s been at least ten seconds. He’s usually extremely verbose. He’s going to grab the orb out of her hands and run and then she’ll have to fight him and probably  _ actually _ break his nose and she’ll be all alone because Nebula betrayed her and everything will suck even  _ more _ \-- “So we can go n --”

Peter moves in front of her just as she turns her head and it takes a second to register that his hands are cupping her face because he’s kissing her, properly, like normal people kiss and not whatever it was Gamora just did, and he’s definitely not stealing the orb from her because she can feel his fingers buried in her hair, large and warm at her temples. 

He makes a little noise at the back of his throat, hardly a whine but definitely unintentional,  _ happy _ , delighted even. His swollen cheek is so close to hers that she can feel the tips of his eyelashes against her skin when his eyelids flutter.

It takes a half beat too long for Gamora to relax, but once she does --

_ Oh _ , she thinks. 

So this is what thoroughly kissing someone is like.

Peter breaks away, presumably to breathe, which is too bad because Gamora has stamina to spare and his lips are so warm and a lot softer than she thought they would be and his scruffy beard tickles which should be annoying but is wonderful instead, and she’s not sure what first kisses are usually like but every part of her seems to be singing.

Metaphorically, of course, because she’s too stunned to actually be making any noise other than the embarrassing sigh that she’s realizing she definitely made when his mouth opened against hers. 

Only, she supposes she  _ did _ just punch him in the face twice over, and he probably is still recovering, so maybe they do need to take a minute to breathe.

He looks a little bit like he’s shocked himself,  _ again _ . Gamora realizes that she’s still clutching the orb  _ and _ his mask, and her knuckles are pressing against his midriff, over his t-shirt. He’s warm there, too.

“Holy shit,” Peter manages, something like awe in his voice, hands still on her face, sounding kind of like he’s having that out of body experience Gamora was thinking of earlier. “I’ve -- wanted to do that for  _ so _ long.”

Gamora laughs, once again hysterical but in a completely different way, belatedly realizing that she is also extremely breathless. Which is embarrassing, but he’s pretty breathless too, and she can bet that he’s probably pinker in the face than she is, which is all she needs.

“Me too,” she gasps, and he grins, bright even in the very dim storage locker lighting, his smile splitting his face in half it’s so big.

“Oh, this is  _ so _ awesome,” says Peter. “Can I kiss you again?” Which makes Gamora rolls her eyes and lean in for him, thinking that finally,  _ finally _ , life is getting a little less complicated.

Which, once again, makes her a damned fool.

“... Aw,  _ gross _ . I thought we’d just be bagging our bounties and gettin’ out.”

There’s a responding  _ clang _ , like someone accidentally knocked over a broom, sounding from exactly the same place the new voice did, and Gamora sees Peter freeze, eyes widening in front of her.

Slowly, they both turn towards the three figures standing in the storage bunker’s exit, blocking their way out.

“No offense,” says Peter, after a very long beat of silence, “but what the fuck?”

“I  _ said _ , we’re here to collect the bounty on your head, dumbass,” says the smallest of the three men, the one Gamora immediately recognizes as one of their regulars. “I dunno what baldy over here is doin’.” 

His tall companion appears to sign something at him from the right, and he nods and rolls his eyes. “I know, I heard all that crap about diamonds too.”

From his left, the bulky figure Gamora is now recognizing as the muscle-bound tattoo guy from before says, “I am here to exact revenge on the murdering mobster Thanos but targeting his favorite daughter.” 

Like he’s commenting on the weather.

“That’s dumb,” says the small guy. “There’s diamonds involved now. Oh, also, I think the cops are comin’.”

And Peter says, “ _ What?” _ , and Gamora feels a strong urge to groan and pinch the bridge of her nose, and everything comes crashing back down to earth again, her breathing returning to normal quite abruptly.

Uncomplicated. What a  _ concept _ .

Peter’s holding her hand, though, she realizes, which is … not the worst thing in the world, Gamora supposes. She squeezes it, and he squeezes back.

She can deal with complicated, for now.


End file.
